Philadelphia Eagles: Analyzing Nick Foles’ performance in NFC divisional

Not bad Nick Foles! Not bad at all.

No one was silent about what they thought. The Philadelphia Eagles, if they were going to beat the Atlanta Falcons, were going to have to do so in spite of quarterback Nick Foles, not because of him. NFL fans, Philly fans and every hotel in Las Vegas were, pretty much all in agreement. ‘The Birds’ (the ones from Philly) had no shot. Saturday night would belong to Atlanta’s ‘Dirty Birds’.

Fortunately, no one was able to get the Eagles to buy in. No one could get them to lose faith in their signal caller. It wasn’t always pretty, but they got it done. That’s all that matters

The Philadelphia Eagles deliver, and so do their quarterback.

To beat the Falcons, Philly would need to overcome two turnovers, a special teams snafu and a Jay Ajayi fumble. Atlanta would cash in with two scores off of those two turnovers, one touchdown and one field goal, but the Eagles would overcome all of that. They Eagles defense shut the Atlanta out in the second half, and their offense tacked on two field goals to give the Eagles the lead and a 15-10 victory.

Here’s one more look at Foles’ night.

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You hear it all the time. The team that wins in the turnover battle will be assured victory. Philly won despite losing said battle on Saturday evening. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson echoed the same theory over and over, stating that ‘Nick was my guy’. Sure, he’s supposed to say that, but this is Pederson we’re talking about. You just had the feeling that he believed what he was saying.

Foles wasn’t perfect. He was bailed out by a pass interference call early in the first quarter. He benefited from a lucky bounce on what should have been an interception for the Falcons. Then, there were wide-open throws that he missed, most notably one that should have been an easy toss and catch to tight end Trey Burton that would have kept the drive alive.

Okay, he didn’t look good, but he was good enough when he absolutely had to be good enough.

Next: The Eagles are now officially Doug Pederson’s team

Foles finished the game and completed just under a 77% of his passes while going 23 of 30. That gave him a passer rating of 100.1. You’d like to see a touchdown pass, but two things that were more important came out of this one. One, Foles seemed to calm down and settle in as this one unfolded. Second, he didn’t commit any turnovers.

A third could have proven to be costly.

Mission accomplished in the divisional round. Now, it’s on to the NFC Championship Game. The party will be in Philly’s house.